By Morgan Wenerick
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
Towson University has recreated the “What Were You Wearing? Weaving a New Narrative” exhibit that was originally born at the University of Arkansas in 2013 to raise awareness of how victims of sexual assault are often blamed for being attacked.
The multimedia exhibit opened at Cook Library on April 4 and will run until April 30 to commemorate Sexual Assault Awareness Month. It features the clothing of sexual assault victims as well as audio recordings survivors.
Julie Potter, a costume designer and one of the producers of the exhibit, said one message of the exhibit is to dispel the notion that women invite sexual assault when they wear provocative clothing.
“Initially the impact for me was in the message that it has nothing to do with the clothes you choose to wear,” Potter said. “Being a costume designer, my job is to create characters based completely around the clothes you wear, and so this message was layered and a little more complex for me.”
Potter said she read about 200 stories about rape cases from the Baltimore Sun, and that the messages women are sent after being assaulted are all wrong.
“How do we change this narrative?” Potter asked. “How do we support others? It needed to be positive.”
The exhibit is set up in the shape of a box made by four large, rectangular panels that house the outfits of victims, while on the other side of the panels are interactive elements.
Dr. Mary Simmerling’s poem, “What I Was Wearing,” is featured on the first front-facing panel. Her poem serves as the main inspiration for the entire exhibit coming to life in the first place, according to the Towson website that promotes the exhibit.
The exhibit features 11 outfits, each one accompanied by a description of the sexual assault incidents, including the date and location of where it occurred. A few of the outfits and stories are from Baltimore Sun articles, some about high schoolers, and some involve Towson students.
Visitors can use one of three headphones to listen to the voices of some sexual assault victims telling their stories in their own words.
Molly Cohen, an alumnus from Towson University and one of the producers, said she was inspired to work on the project after her own experiences with sexual assault. She said she has also learned about others in her life who have faced sexual violence.
“I have been doing a lot of work towards a path of healing and survivor hood, and clothes became an integral part of that journey,” Cohen said. “It’s how I reclaimed my body and voice. I wanted to give others the opportunity to share their stories, on their own terms, and to create a space for awareness and support.”
Joyce Garczinski, an assistant librarian at Towson, said she researched stories from historic Maryland archives – some of which are on display in the exhibit.
“I read through about 1,000 news stories of sexual assault in Maryland from the mid-1800s through the 1990s,” she said. “That was extremely difficult to do and it took an emotional toll on me in ways that I didn’t expect. When I would stop and think about how the people in those stories were real and how their assault must have hurt them, I began to cry. I’ve never had that happen to me before as a researcher.”
Garczinksi said that the Maryland Attorney General’s offices has reported that “one in five women and one in sixteen men will be sexually assaulted while in college.”
Julia Caffrey, a Web services librarian at Towson, had an influential hand in working on this exhibit, providing an animated and interactive survey at the exhibit’s end for viewers to “re-center and recover from the stories,” she said.
“As a survivor-led exhibit, it empowers and gives voices to survivors of sexual assault while retaining their anonymity,” Caffrey said.
The exhibit will not be the only event that Towson is hosting to raise awareness during Sexual Assault Awareness month. There are numerous ones listed on the brochure free to pick up at the exhibit, including a staged reading of Naomi Iizuka’s show, “Good Kids,” in the Van Bokkelen Hall Auditorium on April 26.
Keche Arrington, a student at Towson and the director of the “Good Kids” staged reading, draws parallels to the show and the exhibit in Cook Library.
“[The] more you learn about the survivors’ stories, the more you realize how little importance the clothes have,” Arrington said. “I think there’s a beautiful juxtaposition of an exhibit featuring clothes that, at its core, has nothing to do with the clothes at all.”
One of the many prevalent and powerful messages that these programs and pieces of work are attempting to get across is how present rape culture is. The exhibit can be used to challenge those who believe that rape victims are responsible for what happened to them.
“[We] as a society must talk about the journey to becoming a survivor,” Cohen said. “I hope people use this exhibit as a way to share whatever they feel they haven’t been given the space to.”
There are many interactive parts of the exhibit, such as providing feedback on a tablet after viewing the exhibit, writing messages on clothes hanging from a clothesline on one of the panels, or “leaving your mark” on a map of the campus as a sign of united support.
However, addressing such a sensitive topic may have its setbacks.
“We closed up and tightened the exhibit space, post opening,” Potter said. “We removed the children’s clothing, because it was especially problematic with ‘triggering’ issues. All in all, I think walking this delicate line with sensitivity and purpose is worth the challenges.”
Along the path and journey of survivor hood, one can feel empowered by reclaiming their voice in many ways.
“I think it is important that people that have gone through sexual assault or abuse reclaim their stories,” Arrington said about how people can relate to the characters in Good Kids. “Directing this show is reclaiming mine.”
To learn more about your Title IX rights, consent, what sexual violence is, and Towson’s resources, please visit towson.edu/xoutsexualviolence.